I forgot to mention that the carpets we purchased in Istanbul turned up last Friday afternoon and no import duties had to be paid on them. That was quite a relief.
Both carpets are now brightening the areas in which they have been laid and look beautiful.
I still need to find some time to put up those photos of Istanbul.
The trusty Netgear GS116 that serves as our core switch had recently found itself the victim of unexpectedly rapid growth in the number of networked devices in this house, its 16 gigabit-capable ports filled to capacity. When I purchased it, the proposition of needing more than 16 ports within the next three or so years had seemed an unlikely one. It just goes to show.
With the growing number of networked devices comes greater network complexity and so I started to look for a replacement switch that would provide more visibility into what’s going on within the network.
Having enjoyed reliable service from various Netgear routers and switches over the last few years, both professionally in the US as well as at home in Mountain View and Amsterdam, that company’s offerings were my natural starting point.
Amongst other devices, I looked at the GS748TR and its beefier brother, the GSM7248R. I preferred the latter, but was put off by its relatively high latency, 20 µs for a 64 byte frame. 5 µs is more typical these days.
Ex-colleagues from the Google networking fraternity were adamant that no switch other than the HP ProCurve 2848, a large, heavy, not to mention expensive slab of a device, should even be considered. Such a monster would be overkill for my needs, to be sure, but with the knowledge that I’d already misjudged our growing networking needs in the recent past, I had all the justification I needed for indulging myself with the purchase of this industrial-strength bit-pusher.
After a bit of poking around, I found a Dutch supplier selling the switches quite a bit cheaper than his competitors. I could have bought one second-hand on eBay, but the purchase was expensive enough that I didn’t want to risk possible problems with a used unit.
The switch arrived the very next day, if I remember correctly. I placed it in the server room (a grandiose, but nevertheless accurate name for the cupboard under the stairs), but there was nowhere to really put it, because of its size. The GS116 was sitting on top my patch cabinet, but there’s no way the ProCurve 2848 could be made to balance there; it was much too big.
I was therefore forced to simply place it on top of the box it came in, which put it far enough away from the patch cabinet that I could only connect a few devices to it for testing. It was important not only to conduct a burn-in, but also to get to grips with configuring the switch, prior to putting it into full service.
Not being a consumer grade device, the switch’s factory state meant that some work on it needed to be done before letting it loose in production.
First of all, I upgraded the firmware on the switch to the latest version, I.10.70.
Next, I had to figure out which features were turned on by default and which were off.
For example, the switch’s DHCP relay was turned on, but needed to be turned off, because DHCP service on our network is provided by a different device on the same subnet. ssh was turned off, but needed to be on. Jumbo Ethernet frames, desirable on a gigabit network, are similarly off by default.
The lack of proper housing for the new switch provided the perfect opportunity to dispense with the existing patch cabinet, which had, in any case, also reached full capacity, and replace it with a larger model in which the 2848 could be properly mounted.
A first attempt at this yielded a new patch cabinet that was welded together and couldn’t be dismantled, which meant that it was too wide to pass through the door of the server room. I would need a patch cabinet that could be assembled in situ.
It took a while to find a cabinet that was deep enough to house the new switch, but also available in kit form. Actually, that bit was quite easy: my installer did the homework for me. What took rather longer, however, was waiting for the cabinet to arrive, once it had been ordered.
Last week, finally, the new cabinet came through and I had my installer come over to do the rewiring. It was a huge job, as every cable had to be unwired from its port in the old patch cabinet, labelled, and then later rewired to a port in the new patch cabinet.
Because the patch panels in the previous cabinet had already reached full capacity, there were also a number of CAT 5e cables emerging from holes in the wall or gaps in the ceiling, from where they fed straight into the previous switch, bypassing the patch panels. These errant cables would now also need to be wired into ports in the new patch panels.
The work took a very full day to complete, thanks to the assembly and mounting of the cabinet on the wall, all of the rewiring, and finally the testing of every port to make sure they were all functional. Only one port turned out to be incorrectly wired and that was quickly rectified.
Thanks to the new switch, I could quickly ascertain that all of the ports that should have been operating at gigabit speed were, in fact, doing so.
The home network had been down for the entire day, which, in this house, makes the telephones unusable and even renders watching TV a tricky proposition. You really realise the value of your network at a moment like that.
Thankfully, though, the work has been completed. I’m very pleased with the new hardware and, at the risk of being proved wrong a second time, I’m confident that the new patch cabinet and switch will allow our network to grow for the next several years without running out of capacity.
My project to get the TV room upstairs furnished and made into a really fun place to hang out is now officially — in the sense that I am officiating — complete.
The final piece in the equipment puzzle was the replacement of our Rotel RSX-1550 AV receiver with a Sony STR-DA5400ES.
In the time we had the RSX-1550, we were plagued by problems:
No image over HDMI from our Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player.
Discoloured, yellow image from Nintendo Wii connected over component cables.
Discoloured, yellow image from the RSX-1550′s own configuration menu.
Inability to conbine component video input with analogue audio input (needed for our Nintendo Wii).
Clipping of the beginning of songs played over the Sonos, due to a slow relay that switched state when detecting the presence or absence of a signal.
In short, it wasn’t very good at audio or video. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of anything about it that I liked. Even the remote-control was awful. An AV receiver that can do neither A nor V isn’t much use, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The Sony, on the other hand, which arrived shortly before our departure to Tenerife, is a breath of fresh air. Everything just works as it’s supposed to and configuring the system is a breeze. Both the video and audio from it are excellent.
In particular, the Faroudja DCDi chip’s upscaling algorithms, used to transform lower resolution images, are very effective. DVDs look very crisp,a although some pixelation is obvious on still menus, and even our Nintendo Wii looks decent at 1080p.
We’re finally able to watch Blu-rays with a DTS-HD or Dolby True HD soundtrack, although our surround sound system is only 5.1, not 7.1. Nevertheless, the sound is fantastic.
The final piece in the project was the construction of a wooden panel to be placed vertically along the underside of the equipment cabinet. This deftly hides the tangle of cables on the other side, as it screens the area from the bottom of the TV cabinet to the floor, along the entire length of the cabinet. It’s attached with magnets, so it can be easily removed and is white, so it looks as if it’s part of the cabinet itself.
Polectro, the shop we’ve been dealing with, have been very good. There have been problems along the way, but the people we’ve been working with have never shied away from dealing with them and have always been tolerant of me when I (rightfully) barked at them for something that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
It goes without saying that any shop should provide good service, but it goes equally without saying that one can’t simply operate on the assumption that that’s how it will be in practice.
Polectro, to their credit, didn’t just deliver and install the equipment, but were prepared, when necessary, to modify it. This was the case when I wanted wireless KEF iQ50 loudspeakers without visible radio receiver units in the bedroom. They also arranged the manufacture of the aforementioned wooden panel, resoldered Eloïse’s broken lantern (much to her delight) and even helped me fix the dodgy power-supply of my MythTV PC.
In short, I’m happy to recommend Polectro if you’re in the area of Amsterdam and are looking for a partner for an AV project.
It’s been another of those weeks. What am I talking about? So far, it’s been one of those lives.
Needless to say, we’ve been busy with the house, diagnosing problems and instituting repairs.
The source of the recurring brown stains on our dining-room ceiling would now appear to be a leaking towel radiator in our bathroom. This was repaired yesterday, but I don’t dare have the ceiling repainted until we’ve been away on another holiday and returned to a ceiling that hasn’t acquired further stains.
Just in case the radiator’s not to blame, I’ve had our shower cabinet resealed with new, er… my dictionary tells me the word is lute, but I’ve never heard of it. A lute, to me, is a musical instrument.
Anyway, the grout in the shower cabinet was showing its age and cracks and tears were appearing in the corners, along the edges and wherever a join had been made. Apparently, the previous owner’s wife didn’t want any silicone-based sealant to be used in there for aesthetic reasons. Sigh.
Whether or not it was the cause of the current leak, sooner or later those cracks and tears would have presented problems of their own, so it’s good that they have been tackled.
At the beginning of the week, I was dismayed to come down in the morning and read an e-mail from Sarah that yet another leak in the conservatory had sprung during the night. We had recently had the conservatory glass resealed and, in so doing, had thought to have tackled the last of this particular kind of leak. Alas.
Yesterday, another possible cause of recurring leaks in the conservatory was identified and dealt with. It remains to be seen whether we’ve managed to nail it this time.
As if that weren’t enough for one week, yesterday finally saw the replacement of the largest window in our bathroom. The vacuum between the two separate panes of glass had been compromised, which caused massive condensation across the inside. Whilst this had no structural disadvantage, it wasn’t very pleasing to the eye, so we decided to replace it.
The window in question is constructed from thick, bulletproof glass and weighs 350 kg, so replacing it was not as simple as you might think. The factory that produced it needed no fewer than three attempts at manufacturing a replacement before they had one that passed through quality control. The previous two had dust motes between the panes.
Given the weight of the glass, it couldn’t just be lifted into place, either. A crane had to be hired to hoist the glass over the garden and onto the balcony, where it could be nudged and edged into place.
I don’t mind telling you that a certain amount of anticipation — no, anxiety — no, dread — preceded the day of the event.
With nerves aplenty and inquisitive neighbours observing the proceedings from behind their own glazing, I took photos as the glass guillotine of the old window was precarious manoeuvred from the balcony onto the back of the crane.
My jitteriness was largely unwarranted, it appears, because the new window was placed with nary a hitch. There was minimal damage to the window frame and, because I’d anticipated the need to repaint afterwards anyway, what damage there was will be effectively erased by a new paint job.
The cause of the moisture that had penetrated the old window’s seal became apparent as soon as it had been removed. The underlying sill was soaked in water, which the old sealant had let through and the narrow gutter atop the sill had failed to disperse.
To prevent the problem from reoccurring with the new glass, it was decided to drill holes through the sill to the outside. The exit point of these holes was given a lick of primer, but I’ll have to have them painted pretty soon to prevent the wood of the sill from rotting.
It took five men, including the crane operator, four hours to fit the new window, which included some time spent figuring out how to position the crane next to our garden wall, such that the window could be swung at an angle suitable for the men on the balcony to catch it and manoeuvre it into place. That was actually a large part of the work. When the previous window had been fitted, a similar crane had been used, but at that time, the garden wall didn’t yet exist, so the crane could get closer.
That’s enough maintenance for one week.
And in case you’re wondering why we need bulletproof glass, it’s because I like to stand at the window, giving passing motorists the finger all day long.
No, actually, it’s because our existing windows on the first and ground floors are bulletproof. This glass has a green tint when viewed from the outside, so to replace the bathroom window with normal glass would have resulted in a window that looked quite out of keeping with the rest. We therefore decided to bite the bullet of bulletproof glass. A normal window would have been much cheaper and weighed a lot less, so a crane wouldn’t have been necessary to install it. I just hope no further windows develop the same defect.
We arrived back in Amsterdam yesterday evening. The luggage took an eternity to roll off the conveyor belt at Schiphol and I arrived with a splitting headache (which had started midway through the first leg, from Tenerife to Madrid), an affliction that is becoming all too common for me these days when flying. This time, I was really nauseated and could barely eat anything when I got home. I crashed on the sofa around 21:30 and slept for about eleven hours. Most unusual.
Worse, however, was the sight that awaited us in the dining-room. Going on holiday doesn’t seem possible for us any more without some kind of watery incident occurring in our absence.
You may recall that last time, our boiler had leaked its entire contents via a circuitous route onto the dining-room ceiling. We had wasted no time in getting the boiler repaired and the ceiling was repainted just before going on this most recent holiday.
Alas, although the boiler had, indeed, emptied itself last time, a separate problem must have been behind the water on the dining-room ceiling, because the same thing has happened again this time, too. Our lovely paint job, just a few weeks old, is ruined; the brown stains on the ceiling are back with a vengeance.
Of course, upon seeing the damage, I immediately suspected our boiler again, so I bolted upstairs to check it. To my surprise (and relief), there was nothing wrong with it.
This leaves us with something of a mystery. What is the cause of the leak? I think it must have something to do with either the pipes of the shower cabinet or the heated towel rack in the bathroom above. Troubleshooting this problem could prove very difficult without breaking open walls and/or floors.
One thing’s for certain: there’s no point in having the ceiling repainted until we get to the bottom of this puzzle and have the problem fixed. Let’s hope that, when we do, the insurance is prepared to cough up for the damage a second time.
Groan…
